gudvinr

I don't think it matters in case of rockpi-s because it isn't raw NAND and they have sd controller: https://wiki.radxa.com/RockpiS/hardware/SDNAND

In continuation of this, I also tried to make smaller image by formatting .img file exactly like Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img and copied content from Armbian_23.5.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.32_minimal.img using `sudo rsync -avh mount_point_og mount_point_custom --exclude 'usr/share/locale' --exclude 'usr/share/doc'`. I don't have 8G NAND version so I can't really test it as is but it should be good enough™ I guess. It also didn't boot (silently) but after I flashed Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img back, it booted successfully. So, I think there's 2 things: After I flashed oversized image something (what?) got overwritten and device couldn't boot anymore even from sd card (but it's not clear why) Newer images don't seem to boot at all from NAND even if partition is okay

Another thing I noticed is that og image has 2 GPT partitions: Disk rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img: 905.99 MiB, 950000128 bytes, 1855469 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: gpt Disk identifier: 3B415353-E727-4A03-8826-2ABFEF6808AC Device Start End Sectors Size Type rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img1 32768 262143 229376 112M EFI System rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img2 262144 1855435 1593292 778M Linux filesystem And rkdeveloptool lists those partitions as well: $ rkdeveloptool ppt **********Partition Info(GPT)********** NO LBA Name 00 00008000 boot 01 00040000 rootfs While Armbian image doesn't: Disk Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img: 912 MiB, 956301312 bytes, 1867776 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x68f75ccf Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img1 32768 1867775 1835008 896M 83 Linux Disk Armbian_23.5.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.32_minimal.img: 1.13 GiB, 1207959552 bytes, 2359296 sectors Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes Disklabel type: dos Disk identifier: 0x6812e470 Device Boot Start End Sectors Size Id Type Armbian_23.5.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.32_minimal.img1 32768 2359295 2326528 1.1G 83 Linux But if I write Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img which doesn't have GPT, I still can boot from SD NAND, although rkdeveloptool shows no partitions: $ rkdeveloptool ppt Not found any partition table! I didn't expect 23.5.2 to boot from NAND because it's bigger than NAND size (2359296 > 2027520) but I don't understand why it doesn't boot from SD card unless there's bootable image on the NAND. Arguably, minimal image still should be able to fit to 1G NAND because it has 82M of free space. Also Python is still there (FAQ says it shouldn't) as well as bunch of locales (only needed locales can be generated manually instead) and doc packages. But that's not exactly relevant for the topic.

I am not complaining about that, I just tried different images and reporting what works and what isn't. I'd gladly use mainline image but I wouldn't make this post if it did work. But it doesn't and I have no feedback from the board because it's just dead silent about it. https://dl.radxa.com/rockpis/images/loader/ You mean this one? From what I learnt, rk3308_loader_ddr589MHz_uart0_m0_v2.06.136sd.bin works for rk3308bs chip variant and rk3308_loader_uart0_m0_emmc_port_support_sd_20190717.bin is for older revisions I tried flashing these images (last image that I had on the device SD NAND before that was rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img): Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_legacy_4.4.247_minimal.img works from SD NAND (haven't tried booting from SD card) Armbian_21.05.9_Rockpi-s_buster_current_5.10.43_minimal.img doesn't work with SD NAND but boots up from SD card (it is likely using UART2 but blue LED blinks). Armbian_22.08.1_Rockpi-s_bullseye_current_5.15.63.img also booting up from SD card successfully Armbian_22.11.2_Rockpi-s_bullseye_edge_6.0.10_minimal.img booting up from SD card successfully Armbian_23.02.1_Rockpi-s_bullseye_edge_6.1.14_minimal.img booting up from SD card successfully Armbian_23.5.1_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.30_minimal.img booting up from SD card successfully Armbian_23.5.2_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.32_minimal.img surprisingly works too But after I wrote Armbian_23.5.1_Rockpi-s_bookworm_current_6.1.30_minimal.img to SD NAND it didn't boot at all but AND it stopped booting from SD card as well. Then, I flashed rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img to SD NAND again, it booted successfully. After that, I put SD card back in and Armbian that was there boot up. So, there's definitely something shady going on.

None of the images from https://www.armbian.com/rockpi-s/ work (neither minimal nor cli). I tried writing minimal image onto SD NAND and tried booting both cli and minimal from SD card. I tried 2 different SD cards too. Board was connected through UART0 to PC and while I get output when I use rkdeveloptool, there is no output when trying to boot normally. However, latest image from https://github.com/radxa/rock-pi-s-images-released/releases works (rockpis_debian_buster_server_arm64_20210924_0412-gpt.img) does boot if I write it to SD NAND or SD card. I have V1.3 with RK3308 and 1GB SD NAND.